Our little adventure into Permaculture and Organic Vegetable growing, starting with a small blank field that floods and making it into a Wildlife haven for birds, insects, amphibians and wild flowers, and at the same time providing our food. Learning as we go, leaning towards Permaculture methods, but not exclusively and adopting any ideas that seems helpful.

Pages

Saturday, 25 April 2015

Potatoes are in

Last years potatoes were a little bit of a disaster. They were in what is currently the Onion bed which is where the old duck pond was. Despite having been dug over with 2 feet of manure applied on top the bed got a bit water logged and we had to dig up the potatoes a couple of months early, meaning they were small and wouldn't store. The previous year (2013) they were in front of the fruit garden and were fantastic.

This year they are over the other side of the field and that bed has been expanded by 8 feet or so.

The bed was double dug and then had 2 feet of manure on it for several months, then dug over again. I dug 12 inch to 18 inch trenches for the 1st and 2nd earlies and opted for a shallow trench for the main crop which will then be earthed up. The idea of the deep trenches is so that the potatoes are just above a drainage gully depth (that runs around the bed) and the base of the bed at potato level is humped to allow water to run off. As the potatoes grow I will slowly fill in the trenches with the hope that by the time they are full grown the bed surface will be level and the manure and soil will be fully mixed because this bed still needs a lot of soil improvement as it still has large clumps of clay. The main crop potatoes are in a shallow trench which will be earthed up in the normal way because I ran out of time to double dig. This end of the bed will need double digging next year.

The 1st earlies started to go in on the 9th April 2015 followed by the 2nd earlies and by the 16th the main crop was in.

2 Feet deep manure onto the 1st and 2nd early rows and about 10 barrows of manure on the main crop.

Thursday, 23 April 2015

Wild Flowers Sown

In the past I have scattered wild flower seed in various places over the grass. Sometimes I have trodden the seeds in, sometimes covered them with soil and other times I have dug a small square out of the grass and sown the seeds, but the grass is far to dominant and the flowers get out competed. In the last week or so I have taken a more proactive approach and have tried several other methods.

While digging out a vegetable bed I remove the turf and place in a mound upturned elsewhere to leave mainly exposed soil with which to sow the wild flower seeds. One or two of the mounds I then sprinkle compost to cover the seeds.

Another approach has been to lift the soil and over turn it but leave it in place, then sow the seeds and cover with compost. A third approach has been to dig out a new bed, the same as of vegetables, and sow the seeds direct and rake over. Lastly a fourth approach has been to cut an area of grass very short, sown the seeds and then sprinkle compost over the grass just to suppress it a bit.

Hopefully one of these methods will work, obviously the proper dug beds of wild flower seeds are likely to work, no reason why not, but I'd like some of the less work intensive ways to also work.

I bought 1.5kg of "Westland's Nature's Haven Easy Wildflower" mix and sprinkled these over a mound or bank of exposed soil. These had compost then covering them. This packet is supposed to cover 6 sq metre.

I also bought, because they were half price, 3 different "Adam Henson" 1 kg Wild Flower mix's. Birds Welcome, Wildlife Welcome and Butterflies and Bees Welcome. Each one of these are supposed to cover 10 sq metres of ground. The Birds mix is annual flowers, the Wildlife mix is perennial and the Butterfly mix is also annual. Strangely the garden centre had reduced these to half price as they weren't selling and the display stand looked like it had only sold quarter of the packets since I first saw the display stand about six months ago. I would have thought the Countryfile presenter's name would have sold a lot more of these or perhaps there just aren't enough people wanting to set aside 10 sq metres of ground for wildflowers or perhaps they were simply priced too high. Either way, half price was enough to get me to try them where as full price at £15 wasn't worth it.

Click to enlarge all photos

Wildlife Welcome bed

Birds Welcome bed

This bed is just an extension of the Wildlife flower bed.

Butterflies and Bees Welcome bed

A narrow 18 inch bed. If successful I can expand this bed to the right. Upturned turf, seeds sown and then compost applied to cover.

Westland Wildflower mix bed

This bed is simply the turf from a vegetable bed, upturned, sown with wild flower seed then light covering of compost to hold the seed.

Along with the wildflower seed beds I also dug a bed for sunflowers. I simply sprinkled a lot of seed and raked over the soil.

Sunflower bed

This is another thin bed, 18 inch wide to the south of the pond. I'm hoping they can support each other and provide plenty of seed for the birds as well as for us to eat and sow next year.

Overview of the field

The daily photo taken each morning (or at least most mornings) to show the progress of the field. Click photo to enlarge.

The field has a lot more going on this year and hopefully will be very colourful by July!

Random Wildflower seed sprinkled in the short cut grass a few weeks ago

I have no idea what these seeds were as they were collected last year and just stuck in a pot. Sprinkled over cut grass and then lightly covered over with compost. This is to the west of the pond.

Wildflowers around the pond

In addition to the other beds of wild flowers the pond banks also have flowers that were sown in 2013 but these have now self seeded. Whereas a great mixture were sown the variety has dwindled as the most dominant ones have now taken over. It'll be interesting to see what comes up this year.

Turf mounds
I realised when I made the first mount of turf that if I laid the turfs in a hap-hazard way with plenty of gaps in the gaps provide excellent holes for spiders, frogs, newts and voles. They are an interesting habitat on their own as well as breaking up the flat field into areas. It is also noticeable that they also break up the wind and help to shelter other plants. During frosty mornings you can also see that they provide hot and cold areas. I've started to make these into curved banks, east-west as well as north-south banks for added variety.

Old Bonfire site

The old bonfire site was seeded with random wildflower seeds back in the Autumn as well as various bulbs sown (Daffodil, Grape Hyacinth and Tulips). I got fed up of seeing this bare patch and thought I'd make it a bit more colourful not expecting it to work but it has grown very well. I think there are corncockle flowers and daisies appearing. It'll be interesting in June/July to see what is really there.

Front Garden, Old Pond Area

I haven't done much with the tiny front garden although it will become just for wildlife and birds. The old pond was already filled in when we moved in but had a big depression so I have filled with manure just to level it up a bit. Daffodils were planted around the edges of the garden with a couple of bushes (Butterfly bush) and the grass is deliberately left to grow so the Dandelions can appear. A weed to most people but these are excellent for Gold Finches and yesterday I saw a Green Finch munching away at a Dandelion flower. Brambles coming out of the hedge on the right give the birds more cover and a good watchful perching place next to the feeders. The pond had a packet of corn flowers sprinkled over it and they have now germinated. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. Yellow Flag Iris is still going strong. This garden was full of bees and hover-flies and other insects yesterday in the sun. The Dandelions seem to attract an awful lot of insects.

Update
The Adam Henson range of Wildflower seeds doesn't have a list of seeds. I couldn't find a list anywhere so I emailed them and a few hours later I got a list of seeds from them....excellent service!